Oh Well
by shane2922
Summary: Dark Fic. Fadam based. Eclare,Drew,Fitz,Owen and others mention. *Complete with Epilogue included.
1. Chapter 1

10:26 pm

His eyes darted around at his room as he signed the letter. He looked down at it and let out a sigh of relief. He crumbled the sides as he held it so close to himself before folding it and grabbing the envelope, stretching it open. He gently licked the envelope shut before placing it with the others. _This was it _he thought. He took a seat on the foot of his bed, grabbing his phone.

_Goodbye_ he sent to all his contacts.

Adam took the Smith and West Sigma SW9VE 9mm Black Stainless glock and looked at it for a moment. It almost seemed surreal for him to be holding the gun in his hands, like if it didn't fit or feel right for him to have this. He had bought it off GunBroker by using his dad's emergency credit card and ID.

_This was it_ he thought again. He took the magazine off and walked over to his desk. He had cleaned everything in his room, hoping to not cause enough damage when the time came. He pulled the box of ammunition from the desk draw and loaded the magazine. One by one nice and neatly he pushed them in until it was full. He placed the magazine back into the gun, slid the chamber back, seeing the bullet move into place, still not feeling that sensation to stop himself. He was done and he knew it. The pain he had felt would be gone in 2 seconds.

He placed the gun on the bed and got down on his knees, not knowing why he was there. "I know we never talked hell sometimes I don't even think you exist, but right now I wish you did. My life is getting too hard to handle anymore. I need this. I need…" he wiped the tears off his face. "I need peace. I know my family will miss me, but they will live. Everyone will be ok." He looked back and took the gun from the bed. He switched off the safety before placing it on the side of his head. "This" he said out loud to no one, but mentally talking to everyone. "This is what I need now. I'm sorry"

Drew heard a loud firecracker go off and jumped from the couch. "Adam?" he looked around, maybe hoping to see his little brother hiding and laughing. He looked and saw nothing. "Adam?" he said again, this time walking up the stairs to his brothers room. He turned the knob and found it jammed. "Adam open the door… Adam what are you doing in there? Why are you popping firecrackers in the house? Mom's going to be pissed." Nothing. No smart ass remark or no get the hell out Andrew or anything. Just complete silence. "Adam? Adam?" now Drew was worried. "Open the door!" his heart started to race "Adam I'm coming in!" Drew stepped away as he lifted his leg and stomped it against the door, hearing the wood creak, but not break. He tried again this time succeeding.

Drew opened the door.


	2. Chapter 2

6:48 am

"Yes!" Drew stood up from the couch and raised his fist in the air, looking down at his younger brother just sitting there. It was a typical Saturday morning for the Torres brothers. Their parents were both working and the boys too advantage of it by staying home and playing games. "What's wrong? You mad because I beat you?" Drew starts a fresh new game, not letting his win get to him. He is going to beat Adam again. He takes a seat on the couch and their fingers start to slam into the buttons of the controllers.

"I feel like shit, Drew" Adam says, eyes still on the T.V.

"Uhh huh" Drew simple states, tilting his control, acting as if that is going to help him.

"Don't you ever feel like you're out of time?" Adam looks down at his hands while he says it, not really up to play. Drew looks to his side and notices him fiddling with the controller, but not really playing. Drew lets out a sigh before pausing the game and putting the controller on the table. "What's wrong?"

Adam hears his brother's words of concern, but it's too late. He has lived long enough he thinks. "What if today was your last day? How would you spend it?" Adam asks. "Like the planet is ending and we only get one day or I'm dying of a disease or something?"

Adam lets out a groan before tilting his head onto the back of the couch. "Just!...Just tomorrow you won't be here and you have one more day left type of last day, Andrew"

Drew's mind drifts for a minute. "Well after getting some from Bee…" Drew winks at Adam who rolls his eyes. "…I don't know. Maybe spend it with every one I love, telling them that I love them and spending as much time as I possibly can with them."

Adam was surprised by how honest and deep Drew was being about it all. Adam got up from the couch. "Hey where are you going? We're not done yet."

"I need to do something" Adam heads up the stairs and goes into his room, locking the door behind him. He looks over at his drawer of his computer and walks over to his closet, picking clothes and finding a nice black dress shirt and plain pants to wear. He puts on the clothes and fixes his hair. _Soon_ his thinks. He goes to his closet again and grabs the blue backpack he kept his allowance in, taking all the money out that he had left and stuffs it in his pocket.

"I'm going to be gone all day. I have my cell, but I'll be back before mom and dad get home ok?" he yells down at Drew. "Alright. I'll be here" he replies, not taking his eyes off the T.V. "Adrew..I..I love you ok?"

Drew stops the T.V and walks up the stairs, his brother on top. He looks at him and with out any hesitation hugs him. "Adam, this will pass ok? High school will soon be over and things will get better. Don't let it get to you." _Too late_

Adam hugs him back. "I'm going to go hang out with my friends ok? I'll see you tonight and I can beat you more at call of duty alright?" he jokes. "I let you win" Drew replies back, giving him a playful punch in the shoulder, making Adam half smile. Alright bye bro."

"Bye Drew"


	3. Chapter 3

7:09 am

Adam knocks on the familiar door as he waits for it to swing open. "Hey!" he hears a happy Eli greet him. "Hey, you busy?" he ask his best friend who is already dressed in his usual black attire. Eli looks down at his watch. "Well seeing that it's only 7 in the morning, I got time" he jokes, putting a smile on his best friends face before looking behind the back of the door for the keys to Morty. "So what brings you so early to casa Goldsworthy, Torres?" Eli asks Adam while making their way to Morty. "I wanted to hang out with my best bud alone for a little while before Clare came over" Eli nods in understanding, knowing that him and Adam hadn't really been talking a lot the past few days after the fight at school.

"So where to?" Eli turns over the engine and starts to back it out of the driveway as the radio blast. "To the corner store" Adam says, pulling out some of the cash he had in his pocket. "Whoa rob your mom's purse, Grasshopper?" Eli jokes before putting the car in drive and driving off. "Nah, just money I had saved up that I won't be needing anymore" Adam tells him, looking out side his window and letting his thoughts of death take control. Eli looks over at his friend, a little confused, but shrugs it off before looking back at the road. "Here we are, Mrs. Daisy" Eli jokes, earning a chuckle from Adam who hands him the money. "Uhh why are giving me 40 bucks, man?"

"We need booze and smokes and I'm not old enough" Adam tells him, rolling his eyes when his best friend's mouth drops open. "I'm not…" Adam cuts him off. "You have a fake ID right?" Eli nods. "So get us a bottle and some smokes and whatever is left, buy some junk." Adam's serious expression makes Eli take his friend's consideration of buying the things he is saying more serious. "Why do you want that?" he has to ask. He knew Adam as a nice quite guy that mostly kept things in so something out of character surprised him and even scared him. "I'll tell you when you get the stuff, alright!" Adam was losing a little bit of his patience. Eli let out a sigh before swinging open Morty's door and walking around and inside the corner store.

Adam watched as his best friend went to the back of the store and headed for the hard liquor. Adam took his phone out of his pocket and starts to scroll down at all the pictures in it, some with his friends, and some with his brother before stopping at one particular one. He stares at it for a while, remembering how beautiful she looked on that day. His thoughts betray his plans for a moment. What if he isn't suppose to be doing this? he thinks, getting angry for giving himself a hole to which to back down from. Adam turns up 10 years wasteland on the radio, hoping it drowns out his subconscious.

"Wow this ID is too good." Eli jokes before placing the glass bottle and the pack of cigarettes at the bottom of the passenger seat, seeing his best friend look out into the distance. "You ok?" he asked.

"Just drive" Adam tells him. "Where?" Eli is getting a real bad feeling from all this, but still goes along with it. "To the old church"


	4. Chapter 4

7:25 am

Adam sat on the hood of Morty as Eli got out and put the plastic bag in the middle of them. Adam wasted no time and took out the small medium bottle of Smirnoff and the carton of cigarettes. He undid the clear plastic wrapping and almost opened them. "Whoa hold on" Eli exclaimed before grabbing the carton from Adam's hand and holding it backwards before taping it in the palm of his hand. "It's so that the tobacco doesn't get out" he answered the question Adam wanted to ask. He open the pack of Camel silver menthol crush and handed one to his younger friend next to him.

Adam held it there, for a minute, the smell of it making him a little queasy in the stomach. He looked over at Eli who already held the cigarette to his lips and shuffled something in his pocket, the lighter no less. Adam took the filter to his mouth and left it there as he heard a click and a pair of hands coming up to the cig in his mouth. He moved his face closer, lighting it. "Puff it in or it will turn off" Eli told him, Adam following his instructions and regretting it. The hot air went down his throat were he swallowed it, feeling his lungs longing for air. He coughed a few times, pulling the cigarette and holding it with his thumb and index finger. Eli laughed a little as he lit his up, breathing in the smoke. "Virgin lungs" he exhaled, making the smoke come out of his mouth and nose at the same time. "You've done this before?" Adam asked. "Take the cig and hold it like this" Eli told him, ignoring the question. Adam repositioned the cigarette between his index and middle finger. "Now when you smoke it, pretend it's just you breathing in normally" Eli demonstrated it once, Adam kind of pissed that he was having a hard time doing it. He exhaled and brought the filter back to his lips and inhaled, taking his friends advice and not feeling the same sensation from the first time. He exhaled and earned a pat on the shoulder from his best friend who took the bottle and twisted the top open, breaking the seal.

Eli extended it over to Adam, who took it and wasted no time. He brought the bottle up and lifted his head at the same time, taking on quick swig from it before bringing it down and away from his lips, feeling the burn immediately. "God that's horrible." He said after a few coughs, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. "Hey you never answered my question" he told Eli as the older boy took a long swig from the bottle, his face unfazed from the sensation of the clear liquid. "You done this before?" Adam took a few more puffs from his cigarette. "Yeah I used to" Eli told him, forming an o shape with his mouth and blowing out smoke rings. "It was after…Julia died" he said, taking the cigarette back and practicing the trick a few more times.

Adam looked down at the bottle. Thirty minutes had passed and the bottle had barely been touched from either boy. After three more short sips, Adam didn't want to drink anymore. "You want this?" he held the bottle to Eli who just shook his head. He looked down at his second cigarette and saw it was almost to the filter. Adam got up from the hood of the car and grabbed the carton sitting there and took out four cigarettes and put them in his shirt pocket before throwing the carton on the dirt. "What are you doing?" Eli asked his. Adam didn't say anything as he took the bottle and twisted the top open and poured the liquid over the carton. He flicked the still lit bud over and watched as a blue flame arouse before changing to orange. "Adam what the hell?" Eli looked over at his younger friend as he sat back on the hood again. "You wasted your money. Why did you tell me to buy them if you were just going to just do that?"

"I just wanted to try it once in my life" Adam said, a sad tone in his voice caught by his best friend, who was now looking at the clothes his friend was wearing. "Why are dressed like Johnny Cash anyway?" Eli laughed a little at the comparison. Adam simply shrugged. "I wanted to dress this way."

"Seems like your going to a funeral"

Adam chuckled at the irony of his best friend words. "_I hurt myself today to see if I still feel_" Adam sung out loud in a whisper. "Huh?" Eli asked him. "Nothing man. Hey I'm gonna go ok? But I'll see you in a few hours?" Eli nodded as Adam got up and dusted himself off. "You want me to drive you back?" Eli offered, but Adam declined. "Nah just gonna take in some fresh air." Adam walked over to his best friend and hugged him without warning. The older boy was surprised, but hugged him back. "Bye man" Adam told him before pulling out of the hug and walking away, holding back tears until he got around the corner.

Adam's face went red and he immediately sobbed uncontrollably, feeling his knees about to give in from the pain in his chest, knowing that in a few hours all this would be over.


	5. Chapter 5

8:03 am

Adam's walk to Fiona's place really helped clear his head, well as clear as it could get on this day. The sun shine, the birds chirping, the people on the street a little friendlier, he ignored all that as his own black cloud tarnished all that. He looks up at the brick building and sighs, knowing this is the last time he's seeing this place.

Fiona hears the faint knocks on her door and her face lights up, knowing its Adam. She opens it and sees a half smile from her boyfriend, already knowing something is wrong. "Why the long face, handsome?" she tells him as he swallows the pain telling him to break down right there and then, knowing for her, knowing if she told him not to do it, he wouldn't. "Nothing." He lies. "You ready to head out?" he was going to take her out and maybe to the Dot afterwards, trying to get in more good memories of the both of them.

"Actually.." she pulls him deeper in the apartment to the couch. "I thought we could watch a movie" she says, picking up the DVD case and placing in front of him, letting him see what movie she was talking about. "We haven't seen our movie in a while" she exclaims. Adam was a horror fanatic, but he would be lying if he said one of them was his favorite. He knew the case he held in front of him, an old Italian movie took the title and it was thanks to Fiona that he first heard and watched the movie, liking it, even if the end was heartbreaking. "So early?" he questions her, she shrugs before planting a small kiss on his lips as she takes the case and walks over to the blue-ray player and inserts the dvd. "You know you love it" she looks back at him winking, putting a smile as genuine as the first one his face. He felt a little pleased that she didn't seemed to notice his sad demeanor. No one did.

Fiona quickly took a seat next to him, putting on English subtitles, but leaving it in the original Italian. "Fi, you know I'm not going to understand it" he complains, but she just moves into him, wrapping her arms around him as the movie gets to the part where the main characters meet, the woman topples from above a farm on top of the man as they fall in hay. "Buon Giorno, Principessa!" the man exclaims. Adam looks over at the girl in his arms, her eyes into the movie already. He knew she might be the last thing he would think about when he would be gone. She made the time they knew each other memorable and he would think of all that before pulling the trigger, but right now, that seemed centuries away. He readjusted a little on the couch, his arm behind her head, her face closer to his chest. At least for this moment everything seemed prefect. Like nothing would change, even if it was just for the moment.


	6. Chapter 6

9:15 pm

Adam wiped his eyes as he got up from his desk and went underneath his bed, pulling out the small metal box. He puts in the combination to the lock and pulls it. He opens it and stares down at the last thing to release his pain. He runs his hands over the cold steel before closing it, knowing all to well that in a few it would all be done with.

He gets up to his feet and walks back to his desk, looking down at the 8 pieces of white paper he had used to write to one single person-His girlfriend Fiona. He sits in the chair and looks at the small photo of her in front of him. He picks it up. "I'm sorry Fi. I just can't do this anymore" the tears run down his face. He doesn't wipe them away as he starts to put the long letters in an envelope, making them as flat as possible for them to all fit in there. He gently flips the envelope, writing down her name in front of it. These would be his last words to her. His last thoughts of her.

Adam looks down at the picture again and starts to close his eyes, hoping to see some difference, but nothing. He couldn't see it. He couldn't see himself waking up tomorrow. He shuts his eyes tight, hoping, wishing for something, but just a waste of time. He opens to see her smiles staring back at him. How would things have been for them? He wonders for a moment. Would they have lasted another month? A year? Would Fiona have been the girl he married? All that seems to have one answer and one answer only; No. He stands, grabbing the envelop and picture, putting them on his bed next to his pillow. "I love you, Princess" he says to her face one more time, sitting back down and going back to saying his goodbyes.

9:38 am

The sound of the machine gun coming to life sends Fiona into Adam's shoulder. "Fi you knew it was coming" he chuckles a bit. "Well it's still sad, Adam. I mean he did all that for his son and just..." Fiona goes silent, Adam knowing the movie always had that affect on her.

Right after the end, Fiona gets up from the couch and goes over to turn off the T.V "Mister Torres"

Adam is taken back. "Mister Torres? Uh-oh. What did I do?" he tells her, smiling when she laughs back. "You" she points at him with the remote. "Owe me some food" she tells him, things becoming more clearer to him. Adam gets up and nods quietly, working his way to her and grabbing her around her waist, hearing a quick giggle come out of her before he turns her to face him, looking into her eyes. "Anything for you, Princess" he tells her, Fiona staring back at him. He takes in the sight of her. Her hair not as neat, but still beautiful as always. Her eyes illuminating anything that she looked at, even this early in the morning, her smile still being too addictive to resist. He took her appearance in, knowing that tomorrow it might not be as beautiful. "I love you Fiona Coyne" he told her, earning a big smile from her. "You will always be the girl I will love like no other" he wipes a few strands behind her ear, her eyes examining him and the words he was saying. "Now" he looked away and pulled from their embrace. "Let's head to the kitchen and see what food, if any, is in there" he joked, Fiona biting down on her bottom lip before smacking him in his stomach as he turned away.


	7. Chapter 7

12 :56 pm

Adam looked intently at the girl in front of him as they stopped to get coffee after leaving the her condo. He couldn't help but feel a pang in his heart. Would she remember him when he was gone? "Adam?" he heard her say, looking at her, Fiona confused. "Huh?" Adam blurted out. "I asked what you wanted to drink?" Adam shook his head. "Anything" he said fast, seeing his girlfriend furrow her eyebrows.

"You've been acting a little weird today. What's wrong?" Fiona asked him as she handed him his cup. "Nothing" Adam told her, sipping as they walked, feeling her hook their arms in and rest her head on his shoulder. "I love this. The winter is so much fun, even though it's not really that cold" Adam laughed at Fiona rambles about the weather. "Well winter is just starting. Give it a few months." Fiona looked at him. "I'm going to miss this" Adam swallowed the hot liquid, feeling himself cough. "What?"

"Us. Being here with you before I head back after the holidays" Adam sighed. "What? What were you thinking I was talking about" Fiona looked at him. "Adam please tell me what's wrong? I don't care what it is. Just please. Let me in." Adam looked into her sadden eyes. How could he tell the girl of his dreams that he had lost the will to go on? The will to wake up everyday and look at himself in the mirror without wanting to wear a noose around his neck or a blade in his hand to peal away at his skin. Adam leaned down and kissed her, feeling her hug his waist as he placed his free hand on her cheek. "It's nothing, Princess. Just dumb stress. It will go away." Adam half smiled at her, Fiona nodding at his excuse. They continued to walk, her body still gripping to his along the way, Adam placing a soft kiss on her head every once in a while.

It wasn't a long walk once they headed to a small place to eat, knowing Eli and Clare would arrive after calling them. "It feels like we just had breakfast for it to be lunch already" Fiona giggled. "Well that's time for ya." Adam simple responded, seeing Eli and Clare come through the door, waving a hand in the air so that they came to join them. "Oh you are hanging around Eli way too much, Adam" Clare joked. Adam laughed before hugging Clare. "Well _this_ emo boy is mine" Fiona winking at Adam before sharing a laugh with Clare. "Hey dude come stand next to me" Eli told him, Adam walking over. Eli put his hand on Adam's shoulder. "Separated at birth, right?" his best friend joked, the girl nodding as Adam playfully shoved him away. "Ok ok haha. Can we please sit down and have some food now? Those pancakes didn't really fill me up"


	8. Chapter 8

All four fell on Fiona's couch exhausted from running around town and doing nothing productive. "I thought that guy was going to chase down Morty for a whole block after letting the cherry bomb pop him!" Eli laughed at what Adam was doing while they drove around after lunch, taking in the nice day that it was outside, at least due to the sun actually coming out in the afternoon. "God I am so tired" said a groggy Clare as she yawned and stretched out. "We better get going before it's too late to pick you up from the couch and I have to carry you to the car" Eli jokes as she playfully slaps his chest. All four shared a laugh while Eli and Clare exited the house, leaving time for Adam and Fiona to be alone. Adam walks up to Fiona. "The whole day was-" Fiona spoke but Adam interrupted her midway to plant a long lingering deep kiss on her lips. She doesn't objects and gives in, letting him pick her up and take her to the couch as they both crash, their lips parting and both laughing, both needing the breather. "Wow where did that come out of?" she asks him. "I wanted to do that all day."

"I would want you to that forever" she smiles at him, Adam exhaling and smiling while they readjust on the couch, Fiona on top of Adam as they lay perfectly still, just hearing the wind hit the windows and the slow motioning ceiling fan moving the air inside. "Adam?" Fiona speaks as he plays with her hair and she runs her hand up and down his stomach. "Yes, beautiful?"

"Have you ever thought about the future?"

Adam thinks to himself for a minute. "Yeah. Sometimes I mean I can already picture your future, Princess" Fiona looks up and him. "Really? and what exactly can you picture it as, Prince?" she flashes her smile at him, making the sadness he was about to feel disappear. Adam looks up and thinks for a moment before moving his position a little, Fiona doing the same while still laid on top of him. "You'll be famous for one and everyone will be impressed from your designs and amazing talent. You'll travel the world, _again_" he jokes, knowing she had been to so many places already. He feels her move while she laughs. "But you'll always call New York your city" Adam continues, hoping his voice doesn't crack or that he starts to cry.

"You'll have four children. Boy girl pattern so the boys can look out for the girls. You'll move to a nice quite place" Fiona jolts up. "Paris maybe? Or Milan?" Adam laughs. "Wherever you desire to live, Princess and you'll have this great house with this garden and the kids will plants things with you in the back and have the peace from all the travels and work things." Adam nudges his shoulder. "And all four will have your mesmerizing eyes and beautiful angelic smile" She looks at him and he sees her vibrant glowing eyes look at him with her toothy smile. "And my husband?" she raises her eyebrow at him before putting her head back down on his chest and going back to running her fingers on his stomach.

"You'll be married to a wonderful guy who will look at you everyday and fall head over heals more in love with you. He will be the guy you deserve. Every breath in his body will be thanks to you, beautiful. You will bring his life nothing but joy and everyday he is with you he will feel so lucky because of it." Fiona is in awe at how Adam talked with so much love. "I love you" she tells him before he leans down to feel her lips on his. She hugs onto his body as he pulls her closer to him, feeling her tongue collide with his as they playfully dance, their embrace never once breaking. They let go of on another when air becomes a long needed necessity.

Fiona looks at the clock and sighs. "It's time for you to get home, mister" she says sadden that he had to leave her already. "Yeah. I better get going" he tells her, getting up and putting on his shoes and getting his coat from the love seat on the other side of the room. She gets up from her couch and walk with him sadly to the door. "Persephone" he says out of nowhere. "Huh?" she looks at him a bit odd at what he was talking about. Adam laughs. "Persephone. You should name one of the girls Persephone." Fiona tilts her head. "Like the Greek goddess" Adam smirks. "Precisely." Fiona laughs. "I'll let my husband name her that then" Fiona winks at Adam. He kisses her one last time, once on her lips and once on her forehead. "I love you with all my heart and soul" he whispers to her, letting his hands drop from her face before looking into her eyes. "I hope you will always remember that" Fiona kiss him back. "I love you, too. Now go before you get in trouble." Adam walks backwards to the elevator, not once trying to miss watching her. He stands there looking at her while she laughs and smiles at him. The elevator dings and it opens its doors, Adam getting in and mouthing I love you to her as he steps in and lets the doors close, loving the last image that he would have of her.


	9. Chapter 9

7:53 pm

Adam walked inside his house, not putting his jacket on the hanger, not taking off his shoes. He wouldn't need them tomorrow and he knew this. He walked on the first stair but heard a voice. "What, Andrew?" he said back to his brother calling him, going closer to where his brother was downstairs in the game room. "Hey dude. Where have you been?" Drew asked him, putting his game on pause and looking over at his younger brother, sensing something. "I was out with Fiona Clare and Eli. We spent the whole day together" Drew put the controller down, Adam taking a seat next to him. "It was actually a fun day" Adam said out loud, mostly just talking to himself. "Well I wanted to see if you wanted to join in a little violent killing spree with me" Drew grabbed his controller, taking the other one set on the coffee table in front of them and throwing it at Adam. "Nah man. I'm kind of done with the fake blood gushing of this game" Adam put the controller next to him. "Hey Drew stand up" Adam asked his brother while standing up himself. "Uhhh sure" Drew stood up. Adam looked at his brother before getting closer to him and wrapping his arms around him, Drew hugging him back. "I love you, Andrew" Adam told him. "I know we're not blood, but you are the best sibling I could have ever asked for" Drew patted him on his back, giving his brother their bear hug squeeze before both boys pull away. "I couldn't ask for a better little brother, either, man. I love you too, Adam" he said, Adam smiling. "I'm going to be upstairs" he tells him, Drew nodding as Adam walks away. "Goodbye, Drew" Adam take a long look at his brother standing in the middle of the room, T.V on, X-box on, Drew smiling and telling him goodbye as well. Adam heads up the stairs and into his room. He locked the door of his room and took a seat at the computer chair, turning on the light of the room. He grabbed the blank sheets that were used for the printer and started to write, the first three letters going out to his family. Coming to the end of the letter he wrote his best friend, he took out Fiona's photo from his wallet, staring at it before taking the photo and placing it in front of him. _Hey Beautiful. I'm sorry..._

10:26 pm

He placed the gun on the bed and got down on his knees, not knowing why he was there. "I know we never talked hell sometimes I don't even think you exist, but right now I wish you did. My life is getting too hard to handle anymore. I need this. I need…" he wiped the tears off his face. "I need peace. I know my family will miss me, but they will live. Everyone will be ok." He looked back and took the gun from the bed. He switched off the safety before placing it on the side of his head. "This" he said out loud to no one, but mentally talking to everyone. "This is what I need now. I'm sorry"

10:28 pm

Drew opened the beaten down door. "Bro wha-"

Drew can't finish the sentence. He sees the red liquid spilling onto the floor, the puddle becoming wider. He can't catch his breath. "ADAM!" he tries to scream but it comes out only as a cry. He runs and falls to his knees in front of the bleeding body, not knowing where to place his hands as he takes them and tries to see what he can do. "Oh god, no. Adam please!" he grabs the near by phone and dial only three digits, now noticing the cause of this lying in his brother's hand. "What's your emergency?" he hears a robotic like voice of a woman ask him. She asks him again, a few more times before Drew can get his mouth to work. "I-I need an ambulance" is cried over the phone, Drew going back to seeing what he can do. The operator asks him things, Drew so zoned out he can barely comprehend what is being asked. "Please hurry. My brother..." he can't say it. "There's a gun and... the blood" he puts the phone down, only hoping they would hurry.

Drew hears voices coming down from the door and he screams for them to come up the stairs, the sound of boots coming up echoing in to the quite house. "Get him out of there" he hears a male voice say as he approaches him. He feels hands hook under his arms and drag him out, thanking them mentally because he didn't think he could find the strength to move. "What's your name?" the other paramedic asks, Drew shaking his head at the question. "Andrew-Drew. Drew Torres." The paramedic nods. "Ok Drew I need you to tell me who that is in the room." the slow tempo of the questions making it easier for Drew to understand. "My brother" Drew looks straight into the paramedics face. "He's going to be ok, right?" he asks, getting all the words out in one quick phrase, hoping that it made sense coming out. They hear footsteps approach them, Drew looking up at the male from before standing next to him, looking down at his partner hovering over Drew. "Gray matter on the floor" he says, the paramedic next to Drew closing his eyes. "I'm sorry"

Drew starts to look back. "Help him!" he yells, feeling arms grab him and lead him down stairs. "No! He can't leave him alone!" his cries falling on deaf ears. "You're in shock ok? We need to call someone. Where are your parents?" they ask him, Drew still looking at the house as the red and blue lights hit the outside, looking at the top right hand window, knowing that's where his brother was. "Where are your parents, Drew?" he hears again, but he can't remember, not even if her tried. His mind is gone, blank, nothing makes sense. "Ok call the guys at the morgue. See if they can get someone out here right now" is whispered around him, but Drew can't see who said it. All his thoughts go back to one thing now that has become a horrible reality- Adam is dead.


	10. Chapter 10

10:26 pm

Adam is on his knees, hand shaking, his thoughts replaying things he long to forget, faces of friends he would no longer hang out with, the girl he would no longer love.

_Do it_ he thought. "Do it!" he screamed to himself, his hand not moving, his finger not retracting the trigger, the bullet staying in the chamber. He stood to his feet and paced around his room, gun falling to his side, his hand a tight grip on it. Why couldn't he dot it. HE WANTED IT! He could not have thought a better way to leave this miserable life.

He turn to face the long length mirror in his room, watching his hand in his reflection, bringing the gun to his mouth. He closed his eyes the moment he felt the gun, only to peek and be disgusted by the sight. He took the gun out, the taste of metal and copper on his tongue, a taste he wouldn't forget.

"Come on!" he told himself, feeling his chest caving in on every breath he took, his throat drying. Why, why couldn't he do it! He had wanted this for so long! He inhaled and exhaled slowly, his intake of air becoming more and more shallow.

_Ok…Ok.._ he thought. He got on his knees again. He could feel and hear his heart beating rapidly. "Do it…" he whispered "2 seconds. That's all it takes" the hot tears start down his face. "2 FUCKING SECONDS! Come on, COME on!, COME ON! FFFUUCK!" He threw the gun at the blue wall, the cracking pop blast echoing through out the room. He touched his chest, his arms. He looked down at his upper body. Nothing. The bullet hadn't hit him. He broke.

"Adam?" he heard his name being called from the other side of the door

"Adam open the door… Adam what are you doing in there? Why are you popping firecrackers in the house? Mom's going to be pissed." he was angry, his blood boiling. His brother talked, but Adam wasn't listening. He cried like a little kid, his body dis-inflating a top his hands that lay on the floor. "Adam I'm coming in!" he heard his brother pound on the door as his hands grumbled up into fist and found their way stomping into the wooden floor beneath him.

"Adam wha-"

He punched the floor, never looking up, knowing what Drew was looking at, lying only a few feet away from him. "No why, why!" he bawled at the floor. He felt arms around him, picking him up from the floor, an echoing voice sounding so far away even though they were so near him. "Are you crazy?" Drew yelled, looking at his younger brother, face red. "We need to get you help" is all he heard that his mind made out.

His body felt heavy. Heavy with letting himself down. The broken thoughts in his mind. The burdening cost he would have to bare from now on- The burden of life


	11. Chapter 11

The Next Day

Fiona dials again, hearing it ring then go to voice mail. She hears a knock on her door, jumping off the couch and walking towards the door. "Drew" she's a little taken back to see him in front of her. She sees two people behind him, Eli and Clare. "What are you-"

"Can we come in? Drew says, sounding like talking was difficult. Fiona nods and lets them in, Clare sniffling a little while Eli's head is dropped to the floor, not meeting any ones eyes.

"Have you guys heard from Adam?" I've been trying to reach him on his phone, but nothing" Drew looks at Fiona, sympathy written all over his face. "We need to talk". It was the third time today he had said those words. Drew gestures for her to sit on her couch, Fiona sitting down.

She looks over at Clare, a balled up piece of tissue in her hand. To her right, Eli looks around the room before meeting her sight. She smiles at him, hoping for a reassuring smile from him, anything. Eli blankly stares at her.

Drew exhales, knowing this was going to be hard. "Fiona, a-after Adam got home yesterday…"

Fiona feels sick to her stomach for some reason. She can't know why, but she can feel her insides turn inside of her. "Oh my god, where is he? Is he ok?" she anxiously waits for Drew to continue to talk.

"Adam is dead, Fiona"

He didn't want to say it just like that, but what other choice did he have? He didn't want to press the news any longer. "That isn't funny, Drew" Fiona chuckles a bit. She waits for any of them to tell her it's a joke. She waits for Adam to bust through her door and tell her it was all a prank, but none of that happens. Her chuckle turns silent.

"Eli…Please, _please_ tell me he's joking" the words spoken coming out like a plea. He looks at her, bringing his index and thumb to cover his eyes, squeezing away any tears forming. He clears his throat. "I'm sorry" is all he says, hearing Fiona let out a small whimper.

"No no no. I-I talked to him yesterday. We spent…spent the day together. We…we…our lives together"

Fiona tried to scream, but nothing came out, no noise was echoed upon her walls. She just cried and cried, feeling and hearing Clare come closer, Fiona clinging to her arm, sobbing uncontrollably, feeling her cries not projecting the pain she was feeling. She felt her heart break and shatter with each passing moment.

"We just talked" she tried to get out, knowing that it may not have come out that way. "Our lives. Our kids…Persephone" She sobbed, feeling her face consort in a weird way, knowing her face looked twisted in pain, her tears streaking down her face dripping onto her shirt. She had no more strength. Her body felt heavy, her legs were no longer moveable, she felt crushed and the only one who could take the pain away and make everything better was the cause of all she was feeling right now. Nothing could change that. He was gone. He was long gone. The guy she was in love with was no longer here.


	12. Chapter 12

The Next Day

It's not as easy as it looks. To think about pulling the trigger, thinking of ending it all. Will it make you a coward if you didn't? Things that come to your mind at that moment. Panic. Desperation. You feel it all. It fuels it. Buries you deep in the sorrow you feel just by walking. Walking among the living when you feel so dead inside. The pain you're trying to eliminate. Thoughts you want gone. It passes all at a blur. Your mind can't concentrate on just one. Even now when you close your eyes, you mind won't let things go. You feel your heart race, you take a few more seconds than you should to catch your breath, to stop the sadness for spilling out of you, capping off the tears before they burst out of you. That's how he felt now and everyday after having his finger slip away, not having the courage to be happy. To meet up with lost people he had yearn to see again, if it was just a glimpse before he descended to hell, if there is a hell.

The stench of hospital is written all over the walls of the place. His stomach turns in itself at the mere smell. Papers are signed, documents are processed and here he is waiting to be taking in to a room. "Hi…" the perky nurse looks down at the folder to see his name. "I'm Scarlet. I'll be showing you around the facility once you leave your stuff in your room." She starts to walk, his hand gripping his suitcase, wheeling it along. "Do I get to wear my own clothes?" he asked, knowing it depended on facilities if they let you wear your own clothes. "Yes, but we have to check things in first." She took a key hanging from her key holder attached to her pants off and placed it inside the keyhole, twisting it as he only admired the three blue stripes outside the door of he soon to be room. Three blue stripes and already he knew it meant something bad. "So just lay your things on the bed right there." He walked in and the smell intoxicated him, engulfing him in its oozing odor. The room was white, the long storage cabinet that served as a closet the only thing in the place to be a different color since it seemed to be made of wood. She opened the only door other than the room door and showed him the in room bathroom he had. The bed was a simple twin, white sheets covered by more white sheets and a white comforter on the end of it, maybe for keeping the cold nights at bay. Too bad he liked the cold. "I'm going to need you to remove your shoes and if you are wearing one, your belt." He looked down at his black vans. "They're slip ons" he told her, but lifted his shirt to remove his belt and place it on the bed. "Oh ok did you bring any with shoe laces?" he nodded and put his suit case on the bed and unzipped it open, reveling the clothes he would have to wear for the next month, Scarlet already pulling things out and placing them in different piles. He just stood there, no emotional change in his face, just simply staring at the woman doing her job. It was almost half an hour when she was done, only taking a few things with her, telling him he would have them back at the end of his treatment. "I'll be right back to show you the place oh and by the way the door is to remain open at all times. Those sensors" she pointed on top of the door to a little white bulk on the door and the frame. "Are monitored so I just wanted to let you know" _in other words don't try closing the door and slitting your wrist_ he thought. She left a moment later, giving him enough time to look around at complete nothingness, just taking his things and putting them away in the cabinet. It was a few minutes of this when she came back in and led him out to see the facility, boring him about things he could do. Draw, group talks, sports, ect he felt like he was back in elementary school and simply rolled his eyes at it all. She opened one door that led to the outside. He looked out and saw a few small trees around the so called garden with a tall one in the middle with white bars around. _Maybe keeping people from trying to hang from it_ he thought again, in a way trying hard to ignore his own thoughts, but still they popped up with things. "And now Dr. Nelson is waiting to see you" she told him as he saw a few people out smoking on the provided cement benches scattered around the garden. "This way" she gestured for them to head back inside and down the long hall to a door with a plaque reading the doctor's name. She knocked once and opened the door after getting the ok, sliding a slid to in session as she walked out, leaving them both in the room. He took a seat and stared at the doctor as he explained what he had heard before. Help. Sane. Progress. The words already becoming so diminishing with so much constant use. The hour long session he opened up about what he wanted talk about and felt his anger and pain grow every time he saw the doctor write something down on his notepad. "Our session is done for the moment, but if you feel like you need to get anything else out of your chest, go right ahead" he declined and waited for the door to be opened, wondering what to do next. Scarlet came to greet him and he saw the doctor hand her a few papers as they left. "So here we are" she said happy as they approached what seemed like the front desk, but with all the cabinets under lock and combinations he knew better. "Two Seroquel 50 mg, Two Fluoxetine 20 mg, and two Sertraline Hydrocholride 50mg, but only give me one Seroquel and Sertraline right now and the other two are for pm." She told the woman dressed in pink scrubs. The women nodded and walked up to the steel cabinet and started to turn the dial. "Sorry but, you gotta look away" he was told, turning his back, only hearing the slam of it shut while another was open, again a slam and finally a small sound of plastic. "Here you go" she was trying hard to make him react but nothing. He looked down at the small container, seeing the white round small pill mixed in with two white capsules and a blue long pill. "What's this?" he asked. "Its medication the doctor wants you to take." He was a little ticked off. "After one fucking session, he wants me to take all this?" he felt like punching the wall. "Can I at least know what they are for?" He saw the look. The look on her face as she scrambled to get the information about the pills for him to read. "Uh here" she handed him three small place cards, nice illustration in the front with people smiling and all doctory until he started to read the back.

Panic Attacks

Killing Oneself

Depression

Social Anxiety Disorder

Disturbing and Unusual Thinking

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia. The word replayed and replayed and replayed on his mind. It wouldn't stop. He knew it. He knew what he was now and he couldn't hold it back, but he did. He looked down at the pills and popped them all at once in his mouth, being handed a small bottle of water and chugging it all down. The nurse in the pink scrubs stood up from her chair and gestured for him to get closer to her as she put on a pair of purple gloves. He opened his mouth as she inspected him, seeing if he had really swallowed all the pills. After a nod, she discarded the gloves and Scarlet signed the release form, writing his name down and walking him back to the outside. The next hours were the what he thought they would be. He sat in on a group session as an observer before being introduced, keeping quite afterwards, going out and bumming a smoke from a patient before it got dark. "And here you are" Scarlet said again, popping in from the hall into his room and giving him the last two pills for the day, well at least the first day. Again the same routine, finishing the small bottle before it was time for them to go to sleep, the door being closed and hearing a click, seeing the red dot show up on the corner of the bulky sensor on the door. He wasted no time in heading to the bathroom and lifting the toilet sit. He positioned his abdomen on the corner of the toilet bowl, counting to three. "One…" he picked himself up a little. "Two…" he brought himself down slowly, only making a little contact before pulling up again. "Three" he forced his stomach into the toilet bowl, already feeling the affect of it coming up his stomach and bursting through his mouth. He knew hitting his diaphragm would instantly cause him to puke his guts, thanking his knowledge of the human anatomy. He looked down at the bowl, finding a few chunks of dinner here and there, but seeing a little small blue pill in the mix, knowing he must have puked the small round pill out too. He flushed the toilet and got up to wash his hands in the sink, brushing his teeth afterwards and rinsing his face, looking back at the disturbing face that was his reflection. He walked back into the room and sat at the foot of the bed, letting out everything he had felt the whole day. Letting the sadness of him realistically seeing how insane he was now. "You fucking idiot!" he told himself, regretting not sneaking in something to help his pain. "You really are insane now" he laughed, the laughter becoming a sad sob at the end, his face feeling red and his tears covering his vision. "I should have done it" he told himself between cries. "Now I'm really crazy. I don't want to be crazy" he pleaded with himself. "I don't want to take pills. I just want to be myself again." He felt anger. "Stop fucking crying. Stop fucking cry like a little bitch!" he told himself. He crawled into bed and lay looking up at the ceiling, his tears running to either side of his face now, knowing now his life was changed.

**Author's Note**- One last time. There are always two decisions to everything. One you pull the trigger and end your suffering while leaving the ones you love behind or you don't pull the trigger and stay making others happy. After Chapter 9,** Odd** number chapters- Adam pulls the trigger. **Even** chapters- Adam didn't pull the trigger. Any problems understanding the story? Read the whole story. It makes a lot more sense that way and if you have kept up with the story then you should be fine :)


	13. Chapter 13

One Week later

She's in the fetal position on her couch, starring at the bulky envelope on her coffee table that had been given to her by Drew. It had been a day since the burial and even though she shed many tears and felt her heart break, Fiona was not close to done grieving. Drew after the funeral passed out envelopes to a lot of people that had one written to them, a single name written in front of each of them, Drew giving her what seemed a small package, but she knew he just had a lot to say to her and a short while before he would be gone. When she got home she had set it where it was and hadn't touched it since. A picture of him with his arms wrapped around her while she laughs into the camera next to it. The last picture they had taken together. She hears a knock on her door, then a lock clicking open followed by a slam of the door. "Fi?" she hears, not moving from her place on her couch. She sees Holly J coming up to her and knows she's looking at her with sadness, something she didn't need right now. "You can't stay like this." Holly J tells her, kneeling down, rubbing her friends arm. The hoodie she could tell belonged to him and Fiona hadn't taken it off. "Leave me alone, HJ" she tells her, Fiona's eyes going back to the white envelope again. She hadn't read his last words to her. She didn't want to know he was really gone. "The funeral was a day ago. No one has seen you since. You have to get out." Holly J starts to grip her hand to sit up on the couch, Fiona putting up some resistance. "Not today." She told her. "Give me today to miss him." She wanted to remind herself of his jokes to her, making her laughter, being her rock when everything around her made no sense. He was always there to cheer her up, put a smile on her face even if he embarrassed himself in the process. She knew it was just so he could see her smile, but now those sweet times she would keep to herself as the memories of him. Holly J looked at her and knew this was unhealthy. " Alright but I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying here." Holly J sat on the chair nearest to the couch, keeping a close eye on Fiona. It wasn't long till she saw the heart break her friend was going through. "He didn't have to do that!" Fiona pushed everything off her table. "He didn't have to take his own life. He didn't." Fiona sobbed into her hands, not knowing how she had any more cries left in her after a week of feeling hurt. "I knew something was up. The way he was speaking to me now. What he was saying, but I was too stupid and blind to even blink or care about it. He just made me happy and that's all I saw. I never saw his pain." He had always hidden it pretty well, but it eventually got to him and she wasn't there. Holly J just held her hand, knowing that Fiona's sorrow was long from over or that it would ever be over with.


	14. Chapter 14

A Week Later

"A bottle cap" Ryan asked him. "Plastic won't do anything but make scratches. A metal one you can stomp it on the ground, get one of the edges sharp and get another scar added." He replies, flicking the cigarette on the pavement. "Wow not bad. How about nail clipper?" he shook his head. "Too easy" Ryan only chuckled at this. Ryan had been the only person he had talked to in a week of being here. They didn't have any of the same issues, seeing as Ryan was more in for psychotic behavior towards others and he was well just plain crazy. The pills were working, well at least the ones that he made his body consume in the day. At night it was a different situation with him not sleeping or taking the pills he swallowed, throwing them up before his body digested them. It had been a pattern for him and he was still following it, noticing some changes in his features. His skin was little bit yellow, his eyes red, dark pink bags underneath them from not sleeping. He had become a little more paranoid than he usually was already, even thinking that the pills in general where bad for him and that he needed to stop taking them period. "Hey you in there, man? Or did the voices get you?" Ryan joked. "I don't fucking hear voices, alright!" he stood to his feet, his fist clenched. Everyone always seemed to think that because you are schizophrenic, you automatically hear voices, which was only in certain people that it happened to, the majority not hearing voices, but still having horrible symptoms. "Hey clam down alright? Before the murse comes over and thinks something's up." Ryan pointing back at the male nurse watching over some of the other patients in their time in the supposed garden. He nodded and sat right back down, still wanting to let out his anger in a way. It had been like this for a while. Him losing his temper over insignificant things only to later on regret it, but now that he knew what was wrong, it only made him sad. Horribly sad that it had to come to a failed suicide attempt for him to see how sick he really was. He felt a pat on his shoulder as Ryan offered him another cigarette, declining it. While Ryan called over the nurse to give him a light, he spoke. "I'm tired. It's been a week and I feel exhausted and hurt and I don't know why." He tried his best not to get choked up. "I feel myself all over the place. Like I can't grip anything. I can't think straight. I can't concentrate on one fucking thing because I feel all my thoughts are erratic. I feel like I'm drowning and I'm the one that is holding myself down in the water…" He closed his eyes, the picture so real that he could see the whole thing play out as if he were really underneath water. "..Pulling my head down and deeper until I can barely see what's in front of me. Even the though of taking anything and maybe cutting away at my arms is not enough" He brought the palms of his hands to either side of his head, pushing down a little to see if the pressure went away. He needs it to go away! It wasn't time for the morning routine of taking his pills since he still hadn't gone in to see the psychologist, the center wanting them to not be coked up on meds in the first visit so that in the afternoon visit the difference could be seen. Ryan puffed away, blowing some of the smoke he still had towards him. "You have to breathe, man. Take in a few deep breaths and just-" "Cut the crap. We both know that shit doesn't work. Only on the sane patients it might, but not us. We both know what we have, what goes through our mind. What thoughts pop in and breathing is not going to help it." He saw his, if he could call him that, friend shake his head. "I've been in here for maybe two weeks before you got here and I know what you're going through. The first week is always the hardest. Having to stay in and seat on talks and have to do stupid idiotic things that five year olds do, not having any connection to any one, the only time through a phone call in the front desk or a weekly visit. I get it, but you need to see that this right here, even how stupid and dumb it might seem, will help you." He thought, well tried is more like it, to concentrate in what he had just been told, it being a little difficult since his mind had been made up after maybe a minute of him speaking, but he tried to listen. "So it's just the first week" he asked, Ryan nodding, taking another long drag and puffing out rings. _Just the first week_ he though. _Just the first week_. _Just the first week_. He repeated and repeated in his mind. It had always been a pattern for him to rethink everything now, every good, every bad and every hurt thought he had, he constantly repeated it, playing like a never ending movie in his mind. It wasn't long before one of the patients came back out and it was his turn to head inside and have his morning sit down with the psychologist. He stood and walked away from Ryan and into the center, seeing the nice nurse Scarlet smiling at him as she walked him down to the office, doing her best to make small talk on how he was adjusting to things. "Fine, I guess" he told her before heading in and taking the usual seat. It was now 10 in the morning and the session was over. He was more than happy to get out of there and head towards the garden again, only he was stopped and was handed the pills. He took the pills, looking down to see they hadn't changed or that the dosage he could make on the pill was still only 50 mg before pooping them in his mouth and taking the bottle of water with him to drink as he headed out. Time passed from doing stupid mindless kindergarden crap to a group session to lunch before he was happy. He was expecting it any minute now and he was nervous. It wasn't a long wait when he heard her ask for him. "Hey!" he exclaimed as he made his way towards her, wearing a big smile. It had been more than a week and a day since he had last saw the love of his life and he was ecstatic that she had agreed to come visit him. He stopped in front of her and took in her appearance. She looked a little worried, checking what seemed to him, his arms and face and his body, trying to see if she noticed anything new. It was a long minute, a minute he never wanted to pass between them again when he finally hugged her, her arms finding their way around him as he tried his best not squeeze her to death with the hug. He held on to her, his nose rubbing along the side of her head covered by her long hair, breathing in her intoxicating smell. He has missed her. He could feel her relax as they pulled away and sat on the hall bench, neither one trying to break their hands away from one another. "You came" he told her, bringing her hand to his lips and planting a soft kiss on top of it before leaning in to kiss her cheek. "Of course I did. I wanted to see you" were her first words he had heard from her now. She half smiled at him before looking sadly at the ground. He knew what he had done and he had to let her know something. "I'm sorry. I should have told you what I was planning to do. I didn't tell any one. I kept it to myself" he saw her sadden tear drenched eyes look up at him, breaking a hole right through him to see the pain of it all. "No please don't cry. I don't want to see you cry." She sniffled and took a tissue from her purse before wiping her nose. "How can I not cry? You're in here and you look so different." He bit down on his lower lip, knowing that she would notice that right off the bat. " You haven't been sleeping." She stated more than she questioned. "I have. I just" he sighed. "No. I haven't. I just don't want to take so many pills" it scared him that he would have to take this many pills now and how ever more in the future. "You have to start doing what they want you to do in here. I don't want you to go back to…" she lowered her head and the silence spoke volumes between them. He nodded to her, knowing that she wasn't looking at him, he spoke. "I promise to do anything they tell me to do and…to take any pill they give me" he didn't want to see her get hurt and all on his account. If he couldn't stand one thing, it was seeing the girl of his dreams hurt or suffering and he knew he would do anything to see her happy and smiling at any cost. Their visit was as normal as it could get after that, her telling him how his friends were all dealing with the news, all of them already planning on signing up to come visit him next week. He didn't want his family to come visit, knowing that he might feel anger and pain at them seeing him like this, only asking for his brother and how he was dealing with it all, finding out he was keeping busy trying to clean up his room and have it repainted by the time he got back, always annoyed at him for having dark painted walls. "He better not go for anything other than navy or I'm hitting him in the balls so tell him I said that" he told her, knowing his brother was staying far away from this place. He couldn't blame him. At the end of it all he had come to see that he needed to at least see if this could all help him and that meant doing everything he could to make it work. They said their goodbyes, sharing a long kiss at the end, his lips never wanting to be away from her any longer than they had to be. He waved goodbye as she took the elevator down. The night came and the male nurse, Big Henry as everyone called him came to his room to give him his night meds. He took the thin plastic cup and popped them all in at once, gulping them all down with the water and thanking Big Henry before his door was closed. He stood there for a minute, his thoughts going back from getting the pills out of his system now or just waiting until they did their affect on him. He struggled within himself. He didn't want pills! He despised the idea of it all, but at the end he made his choice. He started to walk towards his bed, taking off the white sheets that had been cleaned and put on his bed that morning and pushed them off towards the end of the bed. He crawled in and sat there Indian style and waited. Waited for him to go to sleep, for his eyes to become heavy, for his breathing to regulate and for his body to relax, hoping that he would dream a good dream and no nightmares. That he would dream of her.


	15. Chapter 15

One Month Later

Fiona put on her sweater and was out the door. It had been hard for her to deal with him dead and needed badly to talk to him. She got in the taxi and told the driver where to go. Fifteen minutes later, they stopped and she asked him to wait while she stepped out. She looked at the entrance of the side where he was buried and started to walk up to it, careful not to step on any pf the plaques containing names and dates of the deceased lying there. Fiona stopped once she saw Adams silver marble plaques on the ground. She looks at it once, takes a deep breath and reaches for her purse, taking out the still unread letter. She wipes her eyes for a second, hoping the tear would not start and carefully tore one side, pulling the bundle of papers out of it. The creases of the folds were now straightened as she held the letter or letters seeing as it was 8 sheets in her hands. She read it out loud. "Dear Beautiful"she stopped. She couldn't do this. "God you're so ungrateful! I hate you!" She spat out at the wind. "Everyone else seems to be having everything go back to normal in their life, but I can't have that anymore." She was frustrated that after a month, everyone seemed to have forgotten already. "All I want is to talk to you. To have that much of my life be normal again, but I can't, Adam. You shouldn't be here." Fiona pointed at the ground. "I try to block it all out sometimes, maybe hoping that I'll forget or move on, but I can't. It's too hard." She looks down at the letter in her hand. "All I have of you now is this letter and I don't want it. I want you." The worse thing of someone being dead is as much and as hard as you try to at least talk to them, you can't. They are not here anymore. All the love you have for them is nothing since they can't feel your wants for them to be here, for you to see them again. To replay all the memories you had with them, being a person you love or a loved family member, its all gone once their heart stops beating. After that the pain of their loss starts. They might have been the only person you knew would never stop loving you and never judge or hurt you. The rock to this cruel world you live in is gone forever until you meet again maybe. Fiona inhale. Her lungs gasping for air. "I miss you so much. Holly J wants me to get another condo, Clare and Eli are inseparable now then ever due to this. They come over to get me out of the condo and keep me company. Your parents and Drew started to clear things out of your room. They are leaving it somewhat like it was till they know what to do with everything." Fiona knelt down and ran her hand over the grooves of his name "What we had is becoming a memory to me now. I thought you and I could have been so happy together, but I guess now we will never know, Adam." Fiona stood up and walked back down to the cab. Once inside she took the opportunity to see if she could try now to read the letter.


	16. Chapter 16

One Month Later

He looks over at his best friend head bopping to the music on the radio, drumming on the steering wheel. He had gotten out already. One month and he was out, sent home with his things, medication and prescriptions for his refills. He was to attend sessions with his therapist twice a week and group therapy session once a month with people that where, as they said, in his shoes as well. He looked out the window, the cool air blowing on his face. He saw the trees in front of the houses as they drove towards his house. He started to feel a little better when it faded. His vision was blurry or at least he saw it like that when things didn't appear right. He closed his eyes and reopened them, but it was still weird. He felt his breathing start up. He closed his eyes. _It's just your head_ he said, hoping that even though sometimes his thoughts after he said that went crazy and wouldn't leave him alone, this time they would. "Its ok" he whispered, knowing that if he said it out loud it had to be true. It had to be right? "Hey you ok, dude?" his best friend asked and he smiled and nodded. He stop looking outside the window and just stared down at his hands, not wanting to see what else would appear. They both stepped out when they arrived. He got his stuff from the back seat and rolled his suitcase towards the door. His best friend let him open the door. Already he knew that people were inside, maybe throwing him a welcome home type party. He opened it and saw a few recognizable faces standing close to the door, his girlfriend in the middle of them all. She walked up to him and hugged him tight while he gripped her body closer to his. His brother patted his shoulder, shaking them away from each other as he hugged him. The welcome home wagon kept coming up to him, giving him welcome home cards and wish you well cards like if he was sick or something._ You are sick_ his thoughts started and he ignored them. People kept coming up to him, smiling and making it all feel homey in a way, but he can't register it. Why is he suppose to be happy? That he's crazy? That he's a fucking schizo now? _Yay lets celebrate that_ he thinks, but puts on a fake smile and continues on greeting them. A close friend of his come up and hugs him before pulling away and handing him a book. 14,000 things to be happy about. He looks at her in a blank stare before looking at the back of the book. Ice cream sandwiches, red leotards, a baseball game going extra innings, a cat running 30 mph, wet babies, tobogganing, Bugs Bunny, Hawaiian shirts, the beach in the fall, and your own rainbow. He looks at it again. _Why would ice cream sandwiches make me happy? Red leotard. What is that? I hate baseball. I hate cats. How does a wet baby make you happy? What the fuck is tobogganing? Bugs Bunny. What does a carton have to do with being happy? I don't live in Hawaii to have those shirts on. I haven't gone to the beach in a while why go now. How do I get a rainbow for myself._ It's a big book. Words written in it that are supposedly going to make him happy. He flips through it before closing it and thanking her for it. He kept trying to talk to people, but felt weird. People start to take pictures, like always his face was just one of neutral expression. He couldn't smile. _Why would he smile_ he always thought. A while later he couldn't shake this feeling. He looked around the room, trying to see what was the cause of it. It felt like every eye in the place was on him, every place he turned, he thought he saw them just staring at him, utter disgust on their faces. _I knew it_ he thought. _They are just here to make fun of me. To see the psycho up close now. The serial killer that they must think I am now._ He walked over to the closet, taking his luggage that he had placed in there out and heading up the stairs, trying his best to get away from all of them. He went up to the first door, knowing it wasn't his room. It was just the spare room that they kept random things in. The computer, a car poster, musical instruments like his bass, the dart board that was hung on the vinyl shelf, some books on it too. He stepped inside and looked around, sitting on the blue couch that was pushed back onto one side of the room. He looked down at the gray carpet on the floor. He needed a breather from it all. It seemed so strange to him now that he sat there on the couch he slept in a couple of nights. The depressive nights he spent in that room. Everything so far from where his life was right now. He heard steps coming up the stairs and watched the door, seeing his girlfriend come in. "You ok?" she asks him as she sits next to him. He nods first, but then shakes his head. "I don't know how I'm suppose to feel. I don't feel numb. I don't feel happy though or sad or depressed. I feel nothing right now really." He looks over at her as just sits and listens to him. "How…this is my life now, but why does it feel so different. Feels like I was never part of any of this, but I was. I remember all the good and bad time that we all had in this room, but it feels so long ago." He sighs. "I thought it would be easier. I thought coming back to my house, my friends, family, my life would be easier. Like nothing had changed, but I feel different." "You just have to get used to it now" his girlfriend told him. "And what if I don't get used to it?" "It's not easy. It's going to be hard for you, but you have me, your friends, your family. We are all here to help you through all this" He looks at her and gives her a half smile. "You're bedroom is done." She tells him, standing to her feet as he does the same, groaning at hearing this. "He didn't change anything, did he?" knowing from what his girlfriend had told him on her visits to him in the center that his brother had fixed it up his room for him, but he had hoped he didn't change the color of the walls, always being a fan of the navy blue walls. She grabbed his hand as he grabbed his suit case and lead him to his bedroom. He watched as she opened the door. He was scared all at once. Not knowing what to expect on the other side that his brother had fixed and what he would see in there. She turned the knob and swung it open. He took in his room. It looked the same, some new posters that he knew she had picked out mixed in with his four most priced vinyl's on the wall, on top of his license plate board that hung overe his bed. "Not bad. He even covered up the holes." He told her, looking at the now navy blue covered wall that a month ago had a bullet hole in it. It looks like it never existed. Like if it was never there. Like if he had never had the gun. He placed the suitcase on the bed as she suggested they go back downstairs. He told her in a minute as he took out one of his pills and put it in his pocket, knowing that it was time to take this particular one right now. "I'll get the water when we're downstairs" he said to her. He lets her turn off the lights and close his door, knowing well that he didn't want to do that, not knowing again what would pop up. He waits for her and takes her hand in his as they walk back downstairs. "You sure you're ok with all this right now?" she says to him. "Hey I tried to kill myself. This should be a piece of cake." He tells her. She shakes her head as he winks at her, getting a little chuckle out of her. "You have a very dark sense of humor, Mister" "You know you love that about me" he plays with her, stepping down the last step before going back to the party. _Be who you were._ He tells himself. _Don't be weird. Don't be the schizo. Let them see you for you._


	17. Chapter 17

2 Months_  
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_I know this isn't the way I should have said goodbye, but it's the only way I know how without hurting you anymore. I meant everything I said and I hope that at the end of the day you remember that about me above all. Bye Beautiful._

Fiona wiped the tears away from her eyes and put the paper down. Even after all the time of reading it, it still caused her nothing but hurt and wanting. The want to have him back, but knowing she couldn't. "Here" Clare sat the cup of tea in front of her on the living room table and then took her seat on Fiona's comfy couch. She thanked her and took a sip before hearing the knock on the door. She started to get up, but Clare beat her to it. Clare opened the door and saw her boyfriend on the other side. "Hey. Is he here yet?" he asked her. Clare took again in his appearance and shook her head. Eli had been getting his rage out the only way he knew how now a days and that was with meaningless fights in and out of school, mostly just trying to pick apart Fitz. He was never good with expressing his emotions and now that his best friend lied 6 feet under, he had to admit, he was a little on his last straw. Clare moved out of his way and he went inside, her following him to the living room. Fiona got up and hugged him tight, maybe lying some of the still wet tears on his shirt. They pulled apart and all three sat back down on the couch. "So this is it, right? All that's left on him?" Eli asked. Fiona nodded, taking a tissue and wiping her face. "I'll be back. I'm just going to the bathroom" She excused herself and left, leaving Clare and Eli to talk. "This isn't healthy for you to use Fitz and your body as your own personal punching bags, Eli" Clare knew that he had been through a lot of pain in the past, and now that he didn't have a driver to blame for the demise of his best friend but an idea and a gun to the head, she knew he wasn't dealing with it all. "Leave it alone, Clare" he warned her. He really wasn't up to talking about anything. Not about Adam taking his life, about him dealing with things like he was. He just didn't want to hear it. "He's gone. You can't-"

"Shut up" he told her, getting up and pacing. "He could have still been here you know. He could have been with Fiona, talking to us, making jokes, cracking about us being around each other too much." Eli took in a deep breath. "He doesn't have to have maggots eating away at him right now. He doesn't need dirt on top of him in a coffin with nothing surrounding him, no noise, no air, nothing. That's how it is now. He…he could still be alive." He brought his hand to his mouth, cleared his throat and sat back down, keeping a distance between him and Clare. The door banging was the only thing that made him react and jump up to open it. Drew stumbled a little before coming inside and putting the box on the table. "Here's t-the stuff my parents didn't want to keep" he said to them. They all looked over and saw Fiona come back and stand next to them. Drew opened the box. A few things were inside. His brother's CDs, comics, beanie, dog tag, his phone, clothes and miscellaneous belongings. Fiona grabbed the beanie. "His favorite" she told them, everyone nodding and trying their best to smile to lighten up things. Eli took the comics and saw most of them were Goon's that they had gone and bought together when they first came out. Clare grabbed the dog tags, holding back tears at the present she had gotten him for his birthday. Fiona took his phone and swiped the pattern to unlock it. The first thing that popped out was their picture as his background. She was trying so hard not to break down. She knew that's not what he would have wanted her to be doing again, but this was going to be hard for her to do.


	18. Chapter 18

2 months

"Wake up!" he heard screeched into his ear by what sounded like his mother, but once he jolted up and quickly out of bed to look around, he saw no one was in the room with him, making him more scared of where that sound came from. He turns on the light to his room, rubbed his eyes and saw the clock was fifteen minutes pass one in the afternoon. He heard a knock on the door and hope it was a real knock. "Who is it?" he asked, hoping there was a response and not just his mind playing tricks on him. His palms were sweating when he heard the sound of his older brother on the other side. "Hey let me in man." He exhales and walked up to the closed door and unlocked it. "Hey" his brother greeted him and they shared a hug before his brother sat down on the chair while he sat back down on the bed. "I heard this morning you went to go get a head scan or whatever that's called." "You mean an MRI?" he chuckled. "Yeah that. How did that uhh go?" his brother's follow up question was just full of all these answers he could give. That they hadn't giving him the results until three hours later and that they had diagnosed him as a schizophrenic, not just the little hint that they got off of his behavior, but that the scans showed what he had feared would happen. "They diagnosed me and gave me one more pill to take if I start to you know hear things and stuff" his brother's scoff took him by surprise. "I still don't see what the big deal is. So you see things." His brother looks around the room. "You see anything cool right now? I mean you can escape your everyday problems with your head, bro. That must be awesome." He stood up. "It's not fun alright! You think its fun trying to go into a closed room and already thinking of something attacking you on the other side? Is it fun that these things.." he points at the things hung on his wall. "..start to melt and move and you can start to see them drip as if they were paint or being scared to look at yourself in the fucking mirror or having to turn on the light constantly at night right before you go to bed to know that nothing is in the room with you or that you need pills to knock you out every night or else you can't fall asleep. This isn't fun. It's fucking torture! It's not awesome to think of yourself as constantly being watched or that people, even your own friends are planning something against you or that if you don't look at your pills or carry them with you, you know that someone poisoned them or that you know that they are useless and the one day you go without taking them, you can't get your thoughts straight!" he was out of breath and felt a lump on his chest before inhaling more air. "Dude I didn't know it-" "Of course you didn't. I mean no one can think things like that. I mean constant things popping in and out of your head like a freeway and you try to grasp one thing and you can't and nothing makes sense. I know you don't understand it, but just treat me the same ok? That's what I really want. It's moments I have right now. Just tiny glimpses of this and I want to keep it that way so just please. Treat me the same as you always have." he got up and took the towel off the door where it was hanging off the door rack. "I'm taking a shower, man. I'm pretty worn out from all that happened this morning and stuff." His brother nodded and he left the room. He didn't close the curtain, but locked the door. That very morning he took a shower, but was always busy looking on the other side of the curtain that he almost slipped, so he decided to just lock the door this time until he got a clear shower curtain and could see through instead of the blue curtain he had now. He didn't close his eyes the whole time, not trusting his mind at the moment. The whole doctors appointment replayed and replayed in his head, the same outcome of diagnose. He breaths in deep, not wanting to react to all this. He was physically drained since that morning. Waking up, heading out to get the MRI, and getting prepped for it. Sitting with his legs elevated from his head and having to have a weird structure put around his head for some reason, getting inside the machine as the sound of what seemed like hammers and a dreadful humming sound coming from it all as images on the little screen came up every few seconds to quote as they said to him stimulate his brain to see how it process' things. One hour in there and three hours of waiting had taken its toll on him as he got home and crashed on his bed. He stepped out of the shower and went back to his room, thankful that his older brother had left and he could change in peace. He went to his night stand and took out all the afternoon pills and quickly popped them in his mouth and drank the bottle of water he always kept next to them. Ever since getting a lock on the drawer where the pills were, he didn't have the thought of someone poisoning them so he took them more calmly. After getting dressed and heading down stairs, he heard his girlfriend. "I brought you something from the store" she told him when she took a clear shower curtain from the plastic bag. "You said we were going to get it after we left the doctor's office, but you were tried so I got it and a bunch of other stuff for us." She started on about what she had bought and handed him his favorite candies as he chuckled with her. She always did that to him. He couldn't just think it was the pills that helped him. It had to be more than just that and he knew it was because of his girlfriend. Because of her he knew that he was in a way, the same guy he had always been. She never changed the way she saw him and he thanked her for that. Mid sentence he hugged her and she laughed as he pulled away, giving her a long kiss on the lips while still holding on to her shoulders as she went along with the kiss. "What was that for?" "For everything. I don't know where I would be without you. I love you" he told her and saw her face light up "I love you too" she eyed him for a minute, but then knew he was just being himself again and she went back about what she had bought as he open the box of red hots and put a mouthful in his mouth and listened.


	19. Chapter 19

3 Months

Fiona felt weird now, walking in the halls, grasping her book for dear life as she felt everyone's eyes on her. Everyone just looked at her like she was a puppy someone had shoot in the face. The most sympathetic eyes that she had ever seen in the school for any one. She went to her locker to find Eli and Clare there. "We're gonna skip. You want to join?" Eli asked her, Fiona nodding furiously, knowing that she could not take another second with people actually trying to come up to her and hug her as if they knew her. The sympathy was gone now after two months of this and the counseling they wanted people to receive at school, she was more than ready to explode on another person that whispered a sorry her way or a poor girl. Fiona Eli and Clare all left out the back and headed for Eli's car, already seeing another shadow cast on the car. "I can't take this shit any more" Drew told them and all of them nodded before getting into the car and driving off, Eli knowing a nice quite place. It wasn't a long trip to the old abandon church where Eli had taken Adam on their semi last outing together. He parked the car and all the bodies flooded out. Eli was the first one out and over to the tree that doubled as a seat for him and he sat on the lowest branch, just a little above the floor. "Did you get all the crap Simpson was saying this morning? Adam never would have wanted that" Eli said "Oh and you knew what he wanted, Eli?" Drew fired back, knowing that it was mostly his mom that had set that up. "Yeah and I knew better than to see him act all that strange and not do anything about it" Eli pushed back. "Are you-Are you trying to blame this on me?" Drew and the girls looked surprised by Eli's accusation "Yeah maybe if you would have paid attention, then gun wouldn't have-" Eli didn't feel the large punch affect him till he found himself on the ground. "Fuck you, alright. You didn't know him to act like now you're some kind of expert on him. You never knew, none of us!' Drew looks back at the girl before looking back at Eli. "Knew what he was going through and…and fuck!' Drew kicked the wood planks that surrounded the place. "Guys." Fiona spoke as she saw Drew drain, both psychically and emotionally. "He's gone. He's dead" she swallowed away the tears. "Adam is gone and not enough fighting with one another is going to bring him back and make everything all better. We just have to live with it. Last night I felt like he was here with me." Fiona touched her heart. "That for once I wasn't alone, that I could know that Adam was here watching us in some way." Eli scoffed, the atheist in him coming out."All the time he was here, even if it wasn't for long, Adam was always making us laugh or making us feel better in some way and now all we do is act like animals towards one another. He wouldn't want to see his brother and best friend at each others throats so for once, just stop." She told them. Drew looked back and held out his hand and helped Eli off the floor, Eli still grabbing the spot where Drew had hit him. Eli looked down at the burn patch on the ground, the place where Adam had set fire to the cigarettes. "He was calm. That day." everyone turned to Eli. "Yeah he had something, but for the most part, he was calm. He was like..ready to leave you know. He just was having a hard time saying goodbye, but he wasn't here anymore. He was long gone and it all might have been for the best, at least that's how he must have seen it." Eli stopped. "He kicked my ass that morning in Black Ops. I was just a little pissed that I wanted a rematch, but he had already won the first and second time, so I was just trying to catch up." Drew smiled as he thought of the memory. "He picked me up when we hugged and called me his sister" Clare said, sniffling a few tears away. "He told me about…" Fiona cleared her throat. "About how I was going to make a great mom one day and have beautiful girls and little boys as big brothers." Fiona let the tears run, but they no longer where for hurting, but healing. "I don't ever think I can forget what he told me. The letter meant nothing to his last words towards me. I know he'll be the guy I will always love." she told them, feeling Clare grabbed her hand and give it a squeeze as they spent the whole time reminiscing, talking about a guy who was long gone, but still was there with them.


	20. Chapter 20

3 Months

He sat in his room listening to the supposedly tranquil CD his girlfriend had gotten him. He sighed and took deep breaths as it instructed. He hadn't been feeling well the last couple of weeks. It was getting to him. The constant worries and the humming, the fucking humming that he heard followed by the obsessive ringing that send a pain shot in to his left arm that made it sometimes completely unbearable for him to do anything with it. He sat there trying to clear his mind with no good use. It was too clouded in there with thoughts, stupid thoughts that didn't go away even with his method of dealing with them. He took another breath till the humming started again. "This is bullshit!" he yelled and kicked the CD radio player. Not caring if it broke or not. "Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!" he repeated and kicked a few more times till he was exhausted. He took long breaths before hearing a banging at the front door. He froze before heading down the stairs cautiously. "Hey bro open up man." He heard and took in a sigh of relief. "Yeah open up, faggot!" _oh no_ he hesitated, but open the door in front of him and saw his brother wasn't alone but with his annoying best friend. "Hey" he greeted them, looking down at the floor, knowing how he felt for the bastard. "So I wanted you to have these" his brother put a book and a DVD in his hands. _Great another fucking book_ he thought and looked at the title. "_I know this much is true_? What the hell is it about?" he asked him. "It's about two brothers and one of them has paran-" "I don't want it" he didn't have to hear the rest and put the book back in his brother's hands. "But I read it and it's a good read, dude. It will help you" "That's what the meds are for" he replied and went and sat on the couch as he saw them seat across from him. "Alright, but you should see this then" and let him see the case cover of the DVD. "_Take Shelter_. Don't tell me a schizo is in it. You think this is helping?" "Come on your brother is trying to be nice. You should be more grateful he believes you and this crazy thing" his brother's friend spoke. He was breathing in and out harder and deeper. He didn't want it to get to him, but it was. "If you don't know what you are talking about, then shut up about it, alright?" it was the softest tone he could use right now. "Listen crazy-" "I'M NOT FUCKING CRAZY!" he screams, feeling his veins popping out from his neck and head. He had a short temper to begin with and with people STUPIDITY it was even fucking shorter! He relaxes for a while and rubs the side of his head. "I'm not crazy" he told them both, holding back the tears and the cracking of his voice. "It doesn't matter how many books you read or how many movies you see, bro. You don't know how it is. I'm not violent or crazy like _people who don't know me assume I am_" he glares at his brother's friend. He always hated that the guy thought he knew him when he had no idea. "This disease I have isn't going to control me or define who I am. It's not going to make me more crazy or violent alright? You want to know how it is for me in one day?" he asked them as sat back down after jumping to his feet before. "I wake up and I sit in my bed for at least thirty minutes preparing myself for what is outside my door and making myself think everything is fine. Then I take a shower with a clear shower plastic curtain so I know there is nothing on the other side of the shower watching and waiting to kill me. That's right. It can look like nothing is there, but I know what I see. I can't close my eyes when I put shampoo in my hair because I know that gives them the chance to try and kill me so I end up pushing through and struggling to keep my eyes open through the washing and rinsing and I walk out with red blood shot eyes every time. I go downstairs and get food out of the pantry, but I have to open it slowly so no one jumps out. Yeah that might seem stupid to you, but I see all of it play out in my mind before it happens. And then the rest of my day is kind of the same, seeing scenarios and watching them happen and hoping nothing happens. That's my whole day." He stared in between both of them before getting up and getting a pain med for his head ache he had already. "Yeah lets" he heard being whispered. "Hey bro I have to go" he heard and popped the pill and the glass of water quick. "Take that with you" he pointed at the things on the couch. "I don't want them nor need them" but his brother shook his head. "I'll fucking burn them, I swear" "I bought them for you. Just I'll see you later man" and they were out the door. He sat on the kitchen chair and put his elbows on the table as his hands found their way behind the back of his head. The humming started again, but then the thoughts started to pop out about someone being in the stairs of the house and he didn't waste any time and left through the front door. He sat on the curb of the house before he thought of a car breaking through the brick fence surrounding the cul de sac he lived in and killing him. He got up and headed back inside his house since he saw it getting dark already, but hesitated at the door. "Nothing is there" he whispered and went inside and to his room, closing the door and locking it. He went to his laptop and opened it and saw who was online in his contact list and saw his girlfriend was. He clicked on the video call button and waited as the phone ringing sound started. He heard her pick up and was thankful he had been talked in by her to get a skype account. "Hey" he heard and a second later saw her on the screen, making it full size and sighing loudly. "Hey Mi Amor. How is everything in New York?" he asked her. "What's wrong?" she asked and he hated that she could read him like a book. "Nothing just my brother came to visit and he brought this schizophrenia things, a book and DVD and wanted me to see it and…it's juts too much you know. He says he wants to understand, but I don't need that from him" "What do you need?" she asked him. "I need him to be like you. You still treat me the same. You don't see this thing controlling me and you just see me. That's what I want. He wants to keep reminding me that I can't get rid of it and that I'll have it for the rest of my life" he exhaled sharply and bowed his head, knowing that he would have this and not be able to get rid of it. "Hey listen" he heard and looked up at the screen at her. "He is trying to be helpful in his own way and its irritating you, but he is trying. You have to give him a chance" she spoke softly and it soothed him. "Before you ask, I already took my meds and I've only had a couple of episodes today. Nothing too much" "How many?" he shook his head. He knew she would ask. "Four, _Mom_" "I'm not your mom. I actually care for you" "Nice zinger" he told her and laughed with her. "I can't wait to see you" he admitted. "You've been gone way too long" he told her as she playfully pouted before bringing her plane ticket closer for him to see. "Booked and ready to go. I can't wait to be in your arms again" "Vosotros me haces mucha falta, Mi Amor" he told her. "Stop talking Spanish. You know I only know five phrases." He laughed and cracked a smile. "Our kids will know more than you do" he joked. "Already picking out there names there, Mister?" she raised an eye brow at him to which he simply shrugged. "I'll let you pick" he told her and saw her yawn. "You better get some sleep then" he told her. "Nah just put the laptop aside and come lie with me" He moved the laptop so that he could take his sleeping pill. Once he did that, he moved it so that he was staring at the ceiling fan with the light on, because he had become used to sleeping like that now. The way he was lying down she only saw his profile while he was in bed and she was on her bed in New York too. "Here some music" she told him and put their song on her iPhone. "I never get tired of hearing that" he smiled and looked over at her lying there with her eyes closed, taking in her beauty. She looked so peaceful and it made his heart jump. "Goodnight, Mi Amor. Sweet Dreams. I cant wait to see you and feel you again here with me" he told her and she repeated his words as they just heard the song play in the background and the playlist from her iTunes keep playing as they started to drift away a bit.

**Author's Note- I got really mad at my brother when he actually bought that stuff for me months back. I don't think I talked to him in a week after that. I have an epilogue to go with this story, but just warning you, it's sad so I'll post that late****r. Review/ leave questions. All that awesome stuff :)**


	21. Chapter 21

Five Years Later

He put the car in park and sat there for a minute, staring out the passenger window, looking up. He sighed and got out of the car, reaching over to the seat next to him and taking out the items he had brought with him. He walked up the grass laced field and up to the small grass place in front of him. "Hey Adam"

Eli smiled as he looked down at his friend's tombstone. "Hey buddy" he said as if he could see Adam in front of him. "I brought you some things" Eli said, pulling the things underneath his arm. He put the comic book next to Adam's grave. 'It's the Goons last issue. I forgot to bring it last time I was here. Better late then never." He chuckled and cleared his throat. "Clare wanted to come but..you know how she gets so she just sent you this poem she had read" Eli took out the folded piece of paper and read it. "_All but death can be repaired. System settled in their sockets. Citadels dissolved. Wastes of lives, resown by succeeding springs. Death, unto itself, exception. Is exempt from change_." Eli turned the paper over. "She thought Emily Dickinson would help a little. I thought this was more the mood a little." Eli looked down at the poem he had read "_Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal. A man awaits his end, dreading and hoping all. Many times he died, many times rose again. A great man in his pride confronting murderous men. Casts derision upon supersession of breath. He knows death to the bone. Man has created death. _William Yeats" Eli folded the paper back up and put it in his pocket again, standing there in front of Adam's grave just standing before getting on with the visit."I uhh brought you some photos too" Eli reached inside the comic book for the two photos. He took the first one and held it up as if he were in a show and tell. "This ones from the reception at the wedding. See Clare? I think we both know she is wearing white just for show" Eli joked and laughed. "There is Drew. He was my best man since…" he stopped. "Uhh…Oh! There's Fiona. She's smiling" Eli smiled at seeing her for that day be happy. "She came in from New York for the wedding after she had left. I don't know if she ever visited you before she decided to leave Toronto. I think she just couldn't..you know.. be here anymore. She was happy though. I think its getting better for her, Rocky" Eli smirked and went down the line of people in the photo, Adam's parents, friends, Eli and Clare's relatives. "It was a great wedding. Who would have thought she would get this dude to settle, huh?" Eli playing with the back of his ring with his thumb, a white gold band with a black lining. Clare was mad when he had picked it out, but she came around to it. "I uhh brought this photo too" Eli's smiled widen as he took out the black and white sonogram picture. "This is the tail" he pointed at one of the legs. "Just joking with you dude. This is his heart beat and these" Eli pointed at the small fuzzes on the side of the baby. "Those are his arms. The doctor says he looks healthy. Yeah" Eli smiled and held back a few tears. "It's a he. Clare says I can name him. Well first name anyways." Eli walked a little closer to the tombstone now, placing his left hand on it. "I'm naming him Adam." Eli sniffed, holding back his emotions. "Drew is going to be the Godfather since you're not here." He cleared his throat harder this time. "Damn tears." He laughed, frowning at the end. "It's been five years. Five years without you here. It doesn't hurt any less. Feels like you missed out a lot in our lives, dude. You should have been my best man, held my kid when he's born, gotten married to Fiona, started a family. Had our children fall for one another and become actual family." Eli sat down now next to the tomb as he felt the tears but continued. "I feel like I let you down. If I could have known what that day was about, why you were saying the things you were saying, why you were dressed that way. Here you were saying goodbye and I was cracking Johnny Cash jokes. I would have stopped you if I had known or paid more attention. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you put the gun down. I'm sorry." Eli cried like a little kid for a minute before taking out the cigarettes and lighter, placing it between his lips and lighting it, taking one drag from it and blowing the smoke out of his lungs. "I don't believe in the after life. I know you know this, but I would like to think you are ok up there or in heaven. I hope you're ok" he looked up as if he was going to see something before taking out his phone. He went to his music and clicked on the song, the riff starting it off.

_I hurt myself today. To see if I still feel. I focus on the pain. The only thing that's real…._

Eli closed his eyes, letting the song begin until it ended, giving himself a minute before he started the conversation with his best friend again, no matter who was breathing and who wasn't, Eli still saw him as his best friend. His best friend that left too early.

END


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